One life to live: The UNtapped market

Posted By: June 21, 2013

With legendaries and rares all having a chance at godliness( well not all of them, frostburns are still going to be bad)there is a market that is growing. Gheeds ghost is looming large in players hearts and helping many players wallets. So as you find that legendary helm, could you sell it without feeling the pressure to id it? Or would you rather roll the dice yourself?

The Unid item market is growing as player’s cash hoards seem to be as well. It isn’t uncommon for players to hoard stashes of unid items and to sell them on the open market. The concept is rather simple. You haven’t been lucky enough to find a Mempo that fits your needs, you can’t afford the three billion one on the AH but you could swing 100mil on a chance that it rolls what you need. Now it’s not just mempo’s but any top end item: Manajuma knives, Fist of Az, Echoing fury, Immortal kings, etc. Anything you haven’t had the luck to find you can now purchase from your fellow players. But why?

With great risk comes great reward. Most of the items you might buy will roll poorly and result in a net loss, however on the off chance it rolls just what you want, it suddenly is worth whatever you may have paid. It harks back to what you could do in D2 with gambling, 90% of the time it was a waste but when you ended up with something worthwhile you were content. The only difference is that gold in D2 was relatively useless, and now it has a clear value in D3. So the risk becomes bigger and as a result so does the reward.

It is however hard to hold onto an item you know might be amazing, to sell for what could be a profit or an amazing loss. The concept isn’t for everyone but what if the option was? There are those who want iron born, those who abstain from the AH, and this isn’t for them. I have bought a few items this way and had it pay off. I bought three manajuma knives in an effort to replace my own. The nearest upgrade at the time was well over 500 million and the total for my three was 100. I knew it was a risk and I had a great chance of all three being garbage but I threw caution to the wind and took a chance. The first two rolled modestly and I was able to sell them for 20 million. The last rolled 909 dps and a socket and I had my upgrade. After selling my old knife I actually made a profit out of the whole gamble, but most importantly I got an upgrade I wanted. Now there are those who will claim this is lazy, and it’s not earned, and I need to find it myself blah, blah, blah. However I fail to see the difference to buying something on the AH. Either way I’m purchasing an item, I just don’t know if it’s good or not.

There is currently no way to buy an UNID item on the Ah so your only hope is to scour forums and trade chat but it doesn’t mean it couldn’t find it’s way in the future. With the absence of a gambling hub we’ve created our own. However this seems like an untapped market for the AH. You could be able to search for Unid items on it much like we do gems now, a universal price would be set and you wouldn’t need to rely as much trade channels to find the one pice you want to gamble on. We say the game needs more gold sinks and this seems like it would be one the community would be open to. However i’ve been wrong before. What do you guys think? Should UNID items be sellable on the AH? Have you bought or sold UNID items?

One Life to Live covers the Hardcore play and life style in the Diablo community. It is written by Xanth and published weekly. Post your comments below, Follow me on Twitter @HCXanth or contact the author directly. For all the archived news about Diablo 3 hardcore check our Archives!

Comments

It isn’t just hardcore. On softcore people that aren’t rich can, should, and often do sell UNIDs to the people that are simply because they’d rather someone else get trolled by RNG. Sometimes you end up selling 10b Mempos to someone for 65m, but usually the sure bet is better.

ID it myself because I don’t like selling what is most likely crap to others who pay because they don’t know their odds. Also, because I still have found so few legendaries that I haven’t gotten past the stage of wanting to look at every one I find.